


Watch Me Unravel

by sidewalksofny



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anthropomorphic, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-08
Updated: 2014-01-08
Packaged: 2018-01-07 23:22:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1125588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidewalksofny/pseuds/sidewalksofny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I don't know what to tell you it's sock fic ok</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watch Me Unravel

To begin with, Harry and Louis were socks.

This time, anyway. Louis insisted there had been, and would be, many other times, though admittedly he couldn’t remember any of them. He just felt it in his fibers. Or so he claimed. Harry didn’t much care one way or the other; all he knew and cared about was Louis curled around him in the drawer.

It wasn’t half bad, being socks. They were thick and warm, white cotton with gray patches on their heels and toes and some sort of insignia on their sides that neither of them could ever quite decipher, though they certainly spent plenty of time puzzling over it. They never minded the smell, because socks can’t smell. They can, however, see. 

And they saw a great deal together—the cobblestones of Paris and Rome, the gritty sidewalks of New York, grassy fields and rocky mountains. They’d spend days taking everything in from ankle height, Harry watching everything on the right side and Louis on the left, and trade stories balled together in the hamper that night. Louis’ favorite were the babies happily seated on the ground, bottoms cushioned by puffy diapers, grabbing at every blade of grass within reach. Harry liked the birds.

Of course, they didn’t always get taken on trips. Sometimes the arbitrary hand of their owner would pass them by and grab other pairs instead. They didn’t mind. Sure, trips were nice, but it was even nicer to have days, even sometimes weeks, to themselves—undisturbed and folded into each other, whispering little things back and forth.

Louis liked to tease him about it now (which only ever sent a wave of heat through Harry and made him curl into Louis tighter. which. Louis never minded.), but Harry had been very, very frightened the first time they went through the dryer. He wasn’t used to being so far from Louis for so long, and that combined with the tumbling motion had made him feel more than a little sick. As soon as he’d come back into contact with Louis, he’d made sure to forcefully static-cling them together—so much so that their owner quite literally had to peel them apart later. Louis had chuckled softly and assured a still-trembling Harry that the dryer was all good fun, getting to fly about and chat with some of the other laundry, and in time Harry grew to love it, too. It was all a bit like a party, really, and Harry liked getting to meet everyone else. Louis’ laughter was always somewhere amidst the roar, often they’d end up crashing into other a few times as it was, and the discerning hand of their owner always made sure they found themselves together again in the drawer when it was all over.

Harry had heard about socks disappearing in the dryer, of course. But he always thought it was just a story—a polite way of saying that a sock had gotten a little too thin, a little too worn, and would not be coming back home to the drawer.

The day Louis disappeared in the dryer was the day Harry got his first hole.

A small one, just by the toe, torn from a snag on his owner’s jagged finger nail. Harry had barely even noticed—he was far too distracted by the fact that all the other socks had been paired up and he was very conspicuously alone, rolled up alone, placed in the back corner alone. He whispered cautiously for Louis in darkness, but all that came back to him was the other socks’ awkward, sympathetic silence. There really wasn’t any other explanation; they had gone into the dryer side by side as usual, and their owner always did a final swipe around the rim to sweep up any stray items. Louis was gone.

Beyond reason or logic, Harry hoped anyway. He sat in the back corner and pictured Louis coming back to him, imagining the ridiculous tales Louis would tell of his adventure, making Harry giggle and blush unabashedly when Louis prodded him about how much he’d missed him, how he’d been absolutely /miserable/ without him, how he just couldn’t go /on/, and Harry would sigh into Louis and never dare let on just how exactly true that was. Louis would. Harry would. They would. It was all just a matter of time. Breathe in. Breathe out. Wait.

The day Harry got paired up and worn with another sock was the day he began to unravel.

It started at his hem, along the top, just a small string. The other sock was nice enough. Harry didn’t ask where its other was; he didn’t want to hear about it, honestly, and he didn’t want the question returned to him. The other sock seemed to wordlessly understand this. It really was quite a nice sock, if Harry were to be fair. But it wasn’t Louis. And the small string got longer, kept getting hooked places and tugged at, just a bit longer all the time, Harry’s seams and stitches slowly but steadily coming apart.

And then, one day in the dryer, Harry disappeared, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Undone (The Sweater Song) by Weezer.
> 
> For some reason I was picturing Liam as the owner.


End file.
